Tobacco advertisements have been around virtually since the beginning of our country.    What would make someone want to smoke; to be cool, or maybe because of the advertisements and movies that are promoting cigarette use.  Beautiful people, breeze running through their hair, and a catchy tune to go along with it.  What more could a consumer want more than to go purchase the product that this company is putting forward?  Tobacco advertisements make smoking seem harmless and that everyone does it.  In fact, they are missing key side effects that would heavily influence the American culture and change the course of history.  According to Lynn Prithcer a professor at Duke who wrote the article, “More About Tobacco Advertising and the Tobacco Collections”, she states that, “Tobacco advertising in America first appeared in 1789, when the Lorillard brothers advertised their snuff and tobacco products in a local New York daily paper.”(1)  Over the course of the next 200+ years, tobacco advertisements have been everywhere from newspapers to your television, showcasing the pleasure and enjoyment that people get from smoking tobacco.  Little did most people know at the time, the serious health related diseases that can arise from smoking tobacco.   Until the 1960’s, there was no warning that this product can cause cancer leaving millions of Americans sick and wished they never touched a cigarette in the first place.   Once people realized the health effects, some of them stopped.  Overall, the shift in tobacco advertisements has most definitely influenced Americans not to buy cigarettes by earlier advertisements showing the great aspects of smoking and the newer advertisements showing the harmful effects which cigarettes can cause.  Earlier ads showcased fun, while newer ads showcased death and disease which was essential to get people to stop smoking because cigarette ads and anti-tobacco ads are so influential.

In the early 1900’s, cigarette advertisements were not a huge concern in the eyes of the people.  Many of these advertisements were in local newspapers, or in the carton of cigarettes that you already purchased.  At this point in time, there were not that many smokers in the United States.  Most of the people that smoked either had something to do with the tobacco industry or were wealthy enough to afford that luxury(CDC 1). According to the Center for Disease Control database, a huge rise in smokers did not occur until about the 1950’s just after World War II when the economy started to boom.  Since more people were able to buy televisions at this point in time, cigarette companies saw this as a huge advantage.  Camel, which is a very popular cigarette brand, introduced one of their first advertisements ever.  The ad starts off with a beautiful “Camel girl” smoking a cigarette while a man with a prominent voice tells a story.  He tells the audience how he interviewed a multitude of doctors and asked them what kind of cigarette they smoked.  All of the doctors said that they prefer Camels over any other cigarette.  This subconsciously makes people want to buy these cigarettes.  They figure if extremely smart doctors are smoking these cigarettes, why shouldn’t I.  These advertisements downplay the serious effects of cigarette consumption.  This company would then introduce a bunch of beautiful women in their advertisements known as the “Camel Girls.”  These were models hired by the tobacco company to make their advertisements more appealing.  This was also around the time when Marlboro man started to become a public figure.  In the article, “The Marlboro Man” the author talks about how the Marlboro Man helped accelerate Marlboro to the number one cigarette company.    The author states that “By the time the Marlboro Man went national in 1955, sales were at $5 billion, a 3,241% jump over 1954 and light years ahead of pre-cowboy sales, when the brand's U.S. share stood at less than 1%”(Adage 1).  Just from advertising, Marlboro was able to create mass amounts of revenue and sell more cigarettes by the minute.  This shows just how influential advertisements can be.  Just because they made a rugged cowboy the new face of their company their sales jumped over 3,000% and that’s nearly unheard of.  This influenced many different Americans to smoke.    Looking at a handsome cowboy, men get the impression that they will become like the Marlboro Man if they smoke.  Ultimately, both almost all of the cigarette advertisements around this time showcases the wonders of smoking, but little do they know the serious health problems this will cause Americans in a short time to come.  

In addition, advertisements from the 1970’s also heavily promoted cigarettes .  Salem was a very popular cigarette in the 20th century and most people to this day still remember the advertisements.  A YouTube video showcases this advertisement and plays it on repeat.    One of the most famous cigarette jingles, “You can take Salem out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of Salem.”  Almost implants itself into the brain when someone watches the advertisement. This advertisement made smoking seem like it was patriotic and a God given right to smoke in America.  While that may be true, the advertisement never once hinted that the product can cause any type of sickness or disease. The video is full of beautiful people smoking on a sunny day singing the jingle on repeat.  Everyone looks like they are having a good time and they all are smoking without a worry in the world.  This is a false representation of how cigarettes should be viewed.  At this time in history, general surgeon warnings did not exist and no one cared about any of the health consequences of tobacco.   According to Lydia Saad who wrote the article, “U.S. Smoking Rate Still Coming Down” based off a survey conducted on Americans.  She states that, “Self-reported adult smoking peaked in 1954 at 45%, and remained at 40% or more through the early 1970s”.  Almost half of Americans smoked at this time and the number did not decline until the early 1980’s. Saad also goes on the talk about this is when general surgeon warnings were required which brought down the smoking rate by 5%.  Although that might not seem like a lot, that is millions of people quitting because they understand the health risks now.  This proves that the shift in cigarette advertisements slowly turned people away from cigarettes by adding a warning about the possibility of cancer. 

In the late 1980’s is when smoking cigarettes started to decline due to the newfound research and link to cancer.  Cigarette companies were not disclosing the full information about the health effects of their products.  Advertisements were mainly showing models smoking and enjoying life, but they neglect to show the serious health effects that accompany smoking tobacco.  “Cigarette Advertising Regulation Today: Unintended Consequences and Missed Opportunites?” is a scholarly article written by John E. Calfee.  This article, along with many others written about the same topic in the late 80’s, sparked a revelation among Americans.  This article went in depth to talk about the ignored health effects of cigarettes and how bad they are for you.  He goes into depth to write about the suppressed health effects in which the cigarette advertisements hide from you.  This sparked further research and development of tobacco related diseases and smoking started to rapidly decline.  This was extremely important in the shift in advertising because it was the first scholarly article to touch this topic.  Millions of Americans were being lied too and Calfee wanted to expose them.  He states that, “Advertising on carbon monoxide, new combinations of tar and nicotine, and the problem of smoker  "compensation" that now plagues FTC tar and nicotine measurements could provide useful information and tend to remind smokers of health hazards that are not suggested by current advertising” (Calfee 1).  This proves that cigarette companies neglected to tell people the dangerous chemicals and tar they are smoking.  Once people realized this and they put that into advertisements, the amount of people that smoked dropped rapidly. According to the survey analyzed by Lydia Saad, in the late 70’s early 80’s, 35-40% of people claimed to have smoked cigarettes.  Since the 1990’s that number has been declining linearly and still is today.  This is partly due to the cigarette advertisements having to put the general surgeon warning on their advertisements.  Since cigarette advertisements could no longer suppress that information and had to include the warning and health effects, smokers started to decline steadily.   After seeing the damage that cigarettes can cause, many people who were affected by this started to create anti-tobacco campaigns to get people to stop smoking.  

Anti Tobacco ads were heavily prevalent in the early 2000’s when most of the anti-tobacco ads were aired on national television.  These ads made a huge statement in the tobacco community and on many people.  Some of these ads played the sympathy card while others just used fear tactics to scare people not to buy cigarettes.  One of the most influential advertisements was an experiment done on YouTube created by the Thai Health Promotional Foundation.  This showed a young child asking for a light from adults who were smoking.  The adults then went to tell the child how bad cigarettes are for you and to never smoke.  The little kid then uses their own words against them and said the same thing.  All of the adults threw away their cigarette and showed a powerful message.  Although this may be only a select few, this shows what would happen if you put things into perspective.  This also sparked shift in ant-tobacco advertisements by putting things into perspective.  It was so influential and got many people to stop smoking.    According to the article, “Smoking Rate Still Declining in The U.S.”, less than 20% of people smoke habitually in the United States.  This directly correlated to the shift in advertisements from the 1970’s to the 2000’s.  On the other hand, Elizabeth Kulz who wrote, “Do Anti-Smoking Ads Actually Work?” would argue that advertisements don’t play as big as a role as people perceive.  She interviewed young teens who said they smoked not because they want to rebel or go against society, but because of their body image.  She then goes to say that the number of smokers has declined and there is no arguing that.  Numerous amounts of surveys have shown the declining number of smokers in the United States.  Cigarettes were much easier to access in the 70’s through the 90’s than they are in 2017, and people were just as concerned with body image then because of the culture in that period of time.  Then, advertisements started to lean toward the negative effect of cigarettes and it had a powerful influence and help spark the decline in smoking. 

Finally, a study shows that the most influential anti-tobacco ads happen to be grotesque.  The fear factor allows room for people to picture themselves in that situation.  An article written by Maggie Fox of NBC news called, “Graphic anti-smoking ads helped 100,000 kick the habit for good, CDC says” claims that more than 100,000 people were affected by the anti-smoking ad.  This proves that the most effective way to get people to stop smoking is fear.  The advertisement shows an elderly lady with an extremely raspy voice.  She had smoked cigarettes for numerous years and she got diagnosed with throat cancer.  Unfortunately, she has a hole in her throat and it is shown on the commercial.  The most disturbing part of the commercial is at the end of the anti-smoking advertisement, it says that this can happen to anyone.  This had a lot of people second guessing themselves by picturing that happening to them.  Over 100,000 people were affected by this proving that advertising strongly effects people’s willingness to purchase tobacco products.  After this ad was first aired on television, people would walk up to the women in the commercial and tell her that she was the reason and inspiration for them to stop smoking.  The anti-tobacco ad helped hundreds of thousands of people to at least attempt to quit smoking.  To put that into perspective, that advertisement inspired a little more than 30% of the total amount of people who quit smoking based on advertisements.  In order for future success and to have more people quit smoking, there needs to be more advertisements like this one to showcase the dangers of smoking tobacco and cigarettes.  People who do not agree with this direct correlation would say that the more youth’s are exposed to tobacco, whether it be anti-tobacco ads or even just seeing there friend smoke, they will want to smoke more and more.  According to the article, “UGA study explains why anti-smoking ads backfire or succeed” the author claims that, “Otherwise, the ads appear to stimulate the rebellious and curious nature of youth, making them more interested in smoking” (Fahmy1).  This is true if it tells the youth not to smoke.  If it just simply lists the side effects, then there would be no rebellion because people did not tell them what to do. Although there might be some truth to that statement, other advertisements, like this one, have changed the minds of many different smokers and will continue to do so in the future.  If you scare people by showing them gross and grotesque videos which can be linked to cigarettes, they are most likely not going to smoke anymore.  Maggie fox would argue that “Terrie” was the most influential advertisement because of its graphic content. 

In summation, the shift in advertising directly impacted peoples willingness to buy cigarettes and smoke tobacco.  For example, when television advertisements were first introduced, many people smoked and thought nothing of it.  Once we gained knowledge about the dangers of cigarettes an anti-tobacco campaign was produced to stop people from smoking.  This is important because it improves the overall health in America and across the world.  These advertisements helped save many lives and will continue to do so in the future.   My argument does also not address the numerous amounts of undocumented adolescents who smoke due to stress and are too young to account for.  So what, why is this important?  It is because like me, hundreds of millions of people have been affected by tobacco in some way, shape, or form.  If one person stops smoking because of an advertisement, essay, or video, then people have done their job.  Saving one life leads to saving many and it occurs as a chain reaction that can positively effect everyone’s life involved.  The shift in tobacco advertisement not only influenced people not to buy cigarettes but saved many peoples lives as well.    
